Monthly Archives: September 2016

It seems unnecessary to introduce our SBA president, because you probably already know who he is. I’ll do it anyways. Sandor Callahan, a 3L, is everywhere: outside playing soccer on the quad, working at the Office of Residence Life at Gewirz, hanging out in Hotung lobby, shouting a hello to you as you come through the revolving doors at Sport & Fitness (Do you know him? Doesn’t matter.). Sandor, who describes himself as “obnoxiously optimistic,” is standing at the helm of an award-winning Student Bar Association and frames his service as the highlight of his time at Georgetown. I believe him. As last year’s Vice President, he’s familiar with the SBA’s capabilities and has several overarching goals that shape his presidency. Chief among them is the development of a forum for students to participate in an ongoing dialogue regarding current events and concerns within the community. The SBA’s form and function make this and other goals attainable possibilities.

The Student Bar Association has announced that the third guest in its Speakership Series will be Khizr Khan.

The event will take place on Thursday, October 6 in Hart Auditorium, at 2:30pm. Ticket allocation will be handled on an RSVP, first-come, first-serve basis – a certain number of students who RSVP first will gain access. At the time of publication, the particulars of this RSVP system were not yet public, nor was a timeline for their release.

Khan rose to national prominence earlier this summer, when he and his wife Ghazala spoke at the Democratic National Convention. The Khans, who are Pakistani immigrants whose son died in the line of duty in Iraq, gave a speech critical of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, especially Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim immigration. The Khans’ speech, the image of Khizr Khan holding his pocket Constitution which he cited during his speech, and Trump’s critical reaction to the speech took the nation by storm and had a significant impact on the campaign trail.

The contents or particular subject matter of Khizr Khan’s visit are unknown at the time of publication.

In a campus-wide email sent Monday morning, Law Center Dean William Treanor announced the administration’s plan to relocate and repurpose the John Wolff International & Comparative Law Library, currently located in the Hotung International Law Building, in order to make way for as-yet undetermined alternative uses.

Students were made aware of the change as part of the announcement of a larger space planning announcement. The email opened by informing students that Sheply Bulfinch, the architectural firm which worked on the Hotung building, has been engaged by the Law Center to assist with “both short-term and long-term space planning.”

The decision to rearrange the libraries is being made to “consolidate the library collection so that all library materials are in the same building. This will simplify operations for the Law Center and will benefit students by preventing the need to go to two separate buildings to find their sources.” While students will surely appreciate not having to trek across campus to track down books, the most immediate impact for many students is likely to be the loss of a significant amount of study space in the Wolff library.

Distinguished Lecturers in Law Paul D. Clement and Viet D. Dinh, as well as the remaining thirteen attorneys at Bancroft PLLC will likely be picking out their new offices on

Pennsylvania Avenue come early October. As reported earlier this afternoon by Above the Law, the entire cast and crew of Bancroft PLLC will be joining big-law heavyweight Kirkland & Ellis just in time for the commencement of the Supreme Court’s October Term.

Professors Clement and Dinh have co-taught a Separation of Powers seminar for nine years. The offices of the former Bancroft PLLC are located at 500 New Jersey Avenue NW, just across the street from the Hotung building.

Professor Paul D. Clement served as the 43rd Solicitor General of the United States and has argued more than 75 cases before the Supreme Court. He graduated summa cum laude from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he also served as the Supreme Court Editor for the Harvard Law Review. After graduation, Professor Clement clerked for Judge Laurence Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and then for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia in the United States Supreme Court. This is not Professor Clement’s first stint at Kirkland & Ellis as he joined the firm’s Washington, DC office as an associate following his clerkships.

Professor Viet Dinh

Professor Viet D. Dinh served as United States Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy from 2001 to 2003. While at the Department of Justice, Professor Dinh participated in the development of legal policy initiatives to combat terrorism, including the Patriot Act. Professor Dinh graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was a Class Marshal and an Olin Research Fellow in Law and Economics. Professor Dinh clerked for Judge Laurence Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and then for Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the United States Supreme Court.

Both professors have been mentioned as possible nominees to the Supreme Court under a Republican administration.

Clement and Dinh are not the only Georgetown faculty to make headlines this year. Earlier this summer, Professor David Cole was named as the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Legal Director.

The first Student Bar Association meeting of the 2016-17 school year took place on Tuesday evening.

Although the current SBA executive board and delegates held one meeting after being sworn in last Spring, much of Tuesday’s meeting was spent introducing members to SBA procedure. Committee chairs introduced themselves and their committee’s purview. An unanimously passed resolution streamlined and reorganized Student-Faculty Committees, which enable student body oversight of the administration of the Law Center. Other matters included proposals to amend SBA’s Constitution and Bylaws to repair procedural ambiguities.

The most vigorous debate took place surrounding this semester’s Student Organization budget. All 54 Law Center Student Organizations request a funding allocation, and the SBA Treasurer, Austin McCullough, is responsible for evaluating and replying to the requests. This semester, as in every semester, the organizations requested more than twice the approximately $60,000 available for allocation.